Please go through the link below on mails sent to the Oversight Committee.
-------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Dyutimoy Datta<ddatta16@gmail.com>
Date: Tue, Aug 30, 2016 at 1:02 PM
Subject: Draft National Medical Commission Bill - Reg.
Respected Sir,
The Draft National Medical commission Bill, apart from specifying the composition of Office Bearers and other such details of administrative set up and functioning of the proposed National Medical Commission (NMC) replacing the Medical Council of India (MCI), including creation of Under Graduate Medical Examination Board (UGMEB) and Post Graduate Medical Examination Board (PGMEB), has no mention of Faculty welfare, a topic most assiduously avoided and neglected by every stakeholder.
1. The problems of ghost faculties can only be tackled by Online Verification of Faculty by use of smart cards ie the Radio Frequency Identity Cards and linking the Bio metric Attendance to the Aadhar and PAN cards. All documents including Degree and Registration certificates, work experience and relieving order can be verified by digital means through linkage with such a card.
a. This will save tonnes and tonnes of paper thereby sparing a bit of our ecology.
b. This will go a long way in preventing forgery and fraud related to simply replacing papers and declaration form of ghost faculties who are substituted by other ghost faculties from the rolls of an agent.
c. This will also give a degree of freedom to Professionally Qualified, tax paying, regular and full time Faculty in attending to family and personal matters like births, funerals, anniversaries, marriage, honeymoon, festivals, children's school related activities to name a few and other professional activities, like attending conferences and workshops with no bias and stick from the Head of Department, Dean/ Principal and College managements. Physical inspections being of a SURPRISE nature, a Faculty is permanently under a house/ campus/ city/ state arrest pending such surprise inspections and never allowed to socially integrate within her/ his community and society at large.
So, a Digital Mission Mode Project (DMMP) is an urgent and most needed reform. It must be strictly and urgently implemented by the NMC in the face of all efforts since 2009 to derail this project
2. Reversal of Faculty numbers is again an urgent need. How can quality of education be upheld if MCI had decided to quote Faculty shortage as a reason for reducing Faculty numbers? The above point and the point below, on ghost faculties, will explain that the so called shortage is artificial and kept so by a nexus of officials, agents, ghost faculties and college managements. Most of the colleges have multiple courses apart from MBBS. And an MCI registered DOCTOR is forced to participate in all the teaching, learning and evaluation processes of such allied courses. The move of the MCI to reduce Faculty requirements is widely seen as a step to save some money for the colleges thus resulting in diversion of the same amount to corrupt officials.
3. If the production of an INDIAN MEDICAL GRADUATE with uniform sets of knowledge and skills is the most important objective of the Indian Medical Education system, then shouldn't the parameters of Faculty pay scale and service conditions be uniform across India.too? Date of credit of salary varies from after 10th of a month to nearing end of a month; some colleges pay once in 2 to 3 months. There is no extra payments for teaching allied courses. What is the PROFESSIONAL RESPECT AND COURTESY BEING SHOWN TO A PROFESSIONALLY QUALIFIED DOCTOR BY THE INDIAN MEDICAL EDUCATION REGULATORS?
Due to this most important reason of ambiguities of pay and service conditions, DOCTORS are unwilling to join as FULL TIME FACULTY in these mushrooming colleges. This was the SHORTAGE OF FACULTY, that was projected by the MCI as a reason for Faculty reduction. Isn't this an ARTIFICIAL SHORTAGE, created and maintained by corrupt officials? And this gap was utilized by AGENTS.
4. DRACONIAN rules of MCI like a Faculty who is shown in a particular medical college for a particular academic year cannot be shown in another medical college create a feudalistic attitude in the managements' mindset. This is used by the Deans/ Principals/ College Managements to subjugate and harass a faculty for the rest of the year after the inspection is over. A faculty is forced to take part in creation and propagation of all fraud related processes accompanying an MCI inspection. If a Faculty has to genuinely shift to another state or college due to family or personal reasons, a proper relieving process is mandatory; many colleges harass af faculty on this point. And if the faculty cannot be shown in another college, who will pay salary for taking care of family needs? The intention of MCI is good, that is to prevent a faculty from multiple presentations at different colleges. But a robust and working digital verification can make this process of relieving and new appointment much less traumatic to the Faculty. Though the intentions of MCI are GOOD, ROAD TO HELL IS ALSO PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONS.
NONE OF US, INDIAN MEDICAL FACULTY, ARE BONDED LABORERS, WE TOO HAVE SENSE OF POSITION AND RESPECT IN OUR SOCIETY AND FAMILY. AS MUCH WE ARE PROFESSIONALLY COMPETENT AND ORIENTATED TO MAINTENANCE OF ETHICAL STANDARDS AND QUALITY OF MEDICAL EDUCATION IN INDIA, WE TOO PREFER A RECIPROCATION. WE ARE NEITHER IN THIS PROFESSION FOR CHARITY NOR TO ALLOW SOME UNEDUCATED SMUGGLER RUNNING A MEDICAL COLLEGE TO SUBJUGATE US FOR HIS OWN PROFIT.
Unless Faculty Welfare measures are put into place urgently with adequate constitutional safeguards and mechanisms of instant redressal, what the NMC is attempting may degenerate into a mess which even PANDORA will fear to touch. And if nobody wants to treat Indian Medical faculty as Humans, the next decade will show the results of a skewed Indian Medical Education Business scene; by then it will be too late.
Yours Sincerely
Dr. Dyutimoy Datta
MD (Anatomy)
Assistant Professor, Anatomy
30th August 2016
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Dyutimoy Datta<ddatta16@gmail.com>
Date: Thu, Sep 1, 2016 at 12:43 PM
Subject: Addition to my previous mail on Draft National Medical Commission Bill 2016
Respected Sir,
In continuation of my previous mail dated 30th August 2016, I wish to add a few more points, since the date for feedback/ suggestions/ discussion on the Bill has been extended to 15th September 2016.
I. One method of permanently taking care of the so called 'SHORTAGE OF FACULTY', albeit ARTIFICIAL SHORTAGE, as explained in my previous mail, and thus eliminate the problem of agents and ghost faculties, is suggested below.
This is apart from the points, mentioned in my previous mail, of
a. strict implementation of Digital Mission Mode Project (DMMP) and online verification of regular, full time Faculty and
b. regularization of pay scale and service conditions reflecting a uniform manner across all private and government (state and central) medical colleges with a strict order on date of credit of Faculty salaries on the first of every month
c. Reversing Faculty reduction.
A suggestion is made for the creation of A PORTAL or AN EXCHANGE similar to EMPLOYMENT/ JOB EXCHANGES as follows,
1. All Doctors are either registered with their respective State Medical Councils or directly with Medical Council of India (MCI). So the Medical Councils know the exact number of Post Graduates (PG) passing out, per batch, from a state. All details of the Doctors are available in the records of the Indian Medical Register. This can be considered as SUPPLY ARM.
2. The state governments, central government and the MCI receives applications from stakeholders for establishment/ renewal/ increase in seats of a new/ existing medical college. This is the DEMAND ARM.
3. INTEGRATING the DEMAND ARM (FACULTY REQUIREMENTS for a NEW/ EXISTING medical college) with the SUPPLY ARM (POST GRADUATE DOCTORS PASSING OUT FROM COLLEGES AFFILIATED TO UNIVERSITIES OF A STATE) in a fully TRANSPARENT MANNER thus forming a PORTAL/ EXCHANGE.
This PORTAL/ EXCHANGE can help in the following manners,
a. Bring in a CAMPUS INTERVIEW type of environment to MEDICAL EDUCATION wherein a particular State Medical Council can facilitate meeting the Faculty requirements of a particular college in the state by providing an opportunity, to a qualified PG, to join as a Faculty in the state itself. This step in itself will require UNIFORMITY IN PAY SCALES AND SERVICE CONDITIONS.
b. will eliminate the need for a Faculty, say for example, from Maharashtra to work in some remote corner of Tamil Nadu, under oppressive environment of unequal pay and service conditions while remaining completely subjugated by the college management, through house/ campus/ city/ state arrest pending SURPRISE MCI INSPECTIONS.
c. A TRUE understanding of the real GAP in this DEMAND - SUPPLY CHAIN will address the so called SHORTAGE OF FACULTY. More and more medical colleges are opening Post Graduate courses. These colleges are concentrated in those states where Dr. Ketan Desai had spread his teams' wings.If a particular state has not much DEMAND for Faculty, there can then be a regulation in the number of PG seats in that state. Or such Doctors can be offered Faculty posts in other states where DEMAND is high.
The role of a REGULATOR, in the crucial Indian Medical Education Business, then becomes that of a FACILITATOR and not that of a PREDATOR. The erstwhile MCI under Dr. Ketan Desai had perfected the art of PREDATORY functioning and PREDATORY INSPECTIONS. This is something similar to what the Oversight Committee (OC) has told the Medical Colleges, whose MCI denied permissions were overturned by the OC, that inspections can be conducted anytime after 30th September 2016; this is an apt example of the continuation of PREDATORY CULTURE rather than a FACILITATORY ENVIRONMENT; same fraud as before will continue. The agent- ghost faculties- college managements- officials of regulatory bodies- politicians NEXUS is already active for the next academic year. And this is due to this ARTIFICIAL SHORTAGE GAP.
The calculation of number of Faculty required for a particular number of students should be made on a scientific basis. The Honbl. Union Health Minister, Shri. J. P. Nadda saab was quoted in the press and tweets as stating, that to facilitate more Doctors to be produced in this country, the MCI Minimum Standard Requirements (MSR) for Faculty numbers was further reduced. How justified is this logic of FURTHER LOWERING OF THE MINIMUM BAR FOR QUALITY TO FACILITATE SUBSTANDARD PROCESSES? Our performances in Olympics reflect the mindset of our POLITY and associated BUREAUCRACY. How will this help in maintaining and bettering INDIAN MEDICAL EDUCATION STANDARDS?
Meeting the norms of DOCTOR- PATIENT RATIO should include all the other 'PATHIES' being produced under AYUSH institutions. Simply stating that DOCTOR- PATIENT RATIO in India is less, thus more DOCTORS need to be produced and hence DILUTING standards for establishing medical colleges being the only solution, appears to be lame POLITICAL excuses to facilitate MIDDLEMAN's income.
States like Maharashtra and Karnataka started this trend of agents and ghost faculties by offering pitiable salaries and subjugative working conditions. This was perfected by Tamil Nadu and Pondicherry (salaries once in 3 months, that too 60% white, 40% black; most of the times black was never paid at all) and borrowed in toto by Kerala. Slowly this ART spread to the North, East and West. Most of the blacklisted faculty appear from these two states of Maharashtra and Karnataka. Most of the reports of colleges in the news for fraud are from the South. And this was Dr. Ketan Desai's playground from early 2000 onwards.
II. In pre and para clinical subjects, there is always a conflict between MD/ MS qualified candidates and MSc./ MSc. PhD qualified candidates for Faculty posts. On one hand, MCI has been giving permissions to add more MD/ MS seats, at the same time number of MSc. seats are also mushrooming. AFTER ALL COLLEGE OWNERS ARE ALSO NOT IN THIS BUSINESS FOR ALTRUISTIC PURPOSES, EVERYONE LOVES A PROFIT. This was aptly put forth by the OC itself that FOR PROFIT COLLEGES need to be started to prevent fraud (One does not understand, though, the logic of such reasoning).
One simple solution to tackle this conflict is to create a post of Research Scientist, with Grades from A to E or as per Experts' opinion on grading, for the MSC/ MSc. PhD candidates, integrating them in the medical colleges as facilitator of research and working as a complement to the Teaching Faculty. These graded Scientists can efficiently help a Department, and thus the medical college and its students, by taking care of Laboratory processes, Research Projects and Paper publications. This suggestion is borrowed from Shri Chitra Thirunal Institute for Medical Sciences and Technology (Dr. Kavita Raja, Professor and Head, Microbiology).
Mandatory publications for promotion of Faculty has resulted in SUBSTANDARD RESEARCH AND PUBLICATIONS almost akin to YELLOW JOURNALISM. It has produced a bunch of publishers who mint money and here too corrupt officials played a big role. Not every Faculty needs to be 100% interested and oriented in all Research and Publication related processes. Some just want to teach. One need not be JACK OF ALL TRADES BUT MASTER OF NONE. A certain basic understanding of Research and Publication processes is more than sufficient, let the Faculty do the job for which she/ he is trained. Most of the mushrooming medical colleges take a minimum of 5 years to settle down, they do not want to spend on infrastructure required for a certain level of publishable research. How do faculty in these colleges produce papers? The answer is PAID PUBLICATIONS. Why create an additional source of WASTING TIME and MONEY of a FACULTY for the benefit of the publishers?
A vast RESOURCES RICH LOGISTICAL SETUP, in INDIA, is already in existence. All it requires is NETWORKING. And if the 'WILL TO FOOL ALL THE PEOPLE ALL THE TIME TO SATISFY THE EGO AND GREED OF A FEW INDIVIDUALS' is replaced by a CONSTRUCTIVE FACILITATORY APPROACH, every stakeholder is benefited leading to efficient STUDENT teaching- learning processes. The whole purpose of existence, of the REGULATORY BODIES and the VAST RICH RESOURCES, is maintaining and bettering the INDIAN MEDICAL EDUCATION STANDARDS and by extension, the HEALTHCARE STATUS OF THE NATION.
Thanking you
Yours sincerely
Dr. Dyutimoy Datta
MD (Anatomy)
Assistant professor of Anatomy
1st September 2016
The discussions in various forums keep evolving but there appears no relief in sight. Please see some mails on Health Professional Educators (HPE) Forum.
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Dr D Datta <ddatta16@gmail.com>
To: meu_india@googlegroups.com
Cc: Narendra Gupta <drnkgupta2000@gmail.com>, Dr K K Aggarwal <drkknpima2017@gmail.com>, letters@thehindu.co.in, editornvmedia@gmail.com, contact@jantakareporter.com, letterschennai@newindianexpress.com, the_telegraph_india@newscom.com, edit@outlookindia.com, connect@mygov.nic.in, Dr Mukesh Yadav <drmukesh65@yahoo.co.in>
Bcc:
Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2017 17:28:39 +0530
Subject: Re: (H P E) Amendments in eligibility of Pg
Respected Faculty Members
No comments:
Post a Comment